


Atlas

by clizziem



Series: Don't Smile at Me [12]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Child Abuse, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Protective Azula (Avatar), The comfort is later though, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:02:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28604928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clizziem/pseuds/clizziem
Summary: “Azula, baby? Wake up,” Ursa’s voice whispers harshly. Azula rubs her eyes and blinks at her mother. She’s wearing a trench coat and has a backpack over her shoulder. Azula sits up and rubs her eyes again.“Mama?” She mumbles. Ursa holds her arms and looks deeply into her eyes. “What’s happening?”Ursa smiles but it looks all wrong and Azula thinks she sees a tear run down her mother’s face. “I have to go, angel girl,” she says.Azula's childhood with Ozai and Zuko through snippets
Relationships: Azula & Ozai (Avatar), Azula & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Don't Smile at Me [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2079291
Comments: 15
Kudos: 267





	Atlas

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. So I know I said you'd get a break from the angst, but I live in the United States (stifles vomit) and I'm sure you know what happened here today. So I didn't really feel like I could write fluff or anything when I sat down wanting to write. I'm just scared and angry about my country right now so this happened. In my defense, someone did request this so. I ended it on a good note but I don't know when the fluff will come. I can't really think of fluff right now. Please leave me fluff suggestions, I made myself cry writing this.  
> That was long-winded but enjoy!

“Azula, baby? Wake up,” Ursa’s voice whispers harshly. Azula rubs her eyes and blinks at her mother. She’s wearing a trench coat and has a backpack over her shoulder. Azula sits up and rubs her eyes again.

“Mama?” She mumbles. Ursa holds her arms and looks deeply into her eyes. “What’s happening?”

Ursa smiles but it looks all wrong and Azula thinks she sees a tear run down her mother’s face. “I have to go, angel girl,” she says.

“Where?” Azula asks. Everything feels wrong and weird and she can’t figure out what’s going on. She grabs Ursa’s wrists and holds on tight.

“Away, Azula. I need to go.”

“But-”

“Baby, I don’t have much time and I need you to promise me something,” Ursa says and grips Azula tighter.

“Promise what?” Azula asks too loudly. Ursa covers her mouth for a second and then sighs.

“I need you to promise me that you’ll look after your brother. He’s going to need you.”

“He’s older,” Azula says and there’s a lump in her throat and she’s not ready to be a big sister. She’s just a little sister who cuddles her brother when he’s sad.

He’s sad a lot but Mama could usually make him happy again.

Azula doesn’t know how to make him happy.

“I know, sweetie,” Ursa says. “But...he’s going to need you,” she says again. Then she pulls Azula into a hug that Azula can’t return because it feels so wrong and terrible. She doesn’t know what’s happening and she doesn’t understand. “I love you, Azula,” her mother says.

“Mama?” Azula whimpers as she gets kissed on the head and then Ursa leaves.

She turns around and walks out of the room.

Azula falls back against the pillows and tries to make sense of everything.

She falls asleep before she can.

Azula wakes up to a crash and rapid footsteps coming up the stairs and then her door is flying open and her brother scrambles to shut the door. Azula catches a glimpse of Ozai’s face before her door closes. Fury doesn’t even begin to describe it. Zuko cowers against the wood and covers his ears.

“I’ll get you later, you ungrateful shit!” Ozai hollers from the other side and then his thundering footsteps make their way downstairs.

“What are you doing here?” Azula demands. Zuko faces her and Azula can’t hold back the gasp when she sees the bruises on her brother’s face. Blue and purple swirl around his cheekbones and his eyes. His jaw is red and tear tracks mark a clear path down his face.

“He...He won’t hurt me in front of you,” Zuko says. His voice trembles and it’s weirdly raspy. He’s never sounded hoarse like that before.

Then she sees the almost black fingerprints on his throat.

“What did you do?” Azula whispers. Zuko’s lip trembles and he starts to cry again.

“I just...I just wanted to know where Mama went,” he sobs. “I’m sorry.”

_ He’s going to need you. _

Azula shakes her head and wraps her eight-year-old body around her brother. “It’s okay, Zu-Zu. It’s okay.”

She starts to lie. She lies to teachers. She lies to her friends, which she hates more than anything. She lies to Ozai and she lies to her classmates.

She gets so good at it, sometimes she even fools herself.

“He tripped on our stairs.”

“Everything’s fine at home.”

“Our mom didn’t  _ leave _ , she’s just on a trip.”

“I’m fine.”

She never quite convinces herself of that last one. When she starts to lie, she hears something Ursa used to say when she got especially tired of her.

Azula always lies.

She doesn’t want to lie. She wants to scream for help. She wants to take her brother and run as far away as she can. She wants to tell that teacher the truth when she pulls her aside and tells her that Zuko isn’t looking good.

As if she doesn’t know that. She’s been watching him fall apart for months.

He doesn’t laugh or smile anymore. He says he can’t remember how.

He doesn’t play dolls with her anymore. He says he’s too scared of what Dad will do.

He doesn’t even sleep anymore. He says it hurts too much.

But no.

Azula lies through her teeth and dies a little inside.

Every time Ozai attacks him, Zuko runs into her room. Ozai loves her, he wouldn’t do anything to scare her.

It works for a while.

For a whole year, Zuko can escape a beating by running into Azula’s room and waiting for the storm to pass.

Until one time. One time that changes everything.

Zuko’s just closed the door to Azula’s room and makes it halfway to her bed when the door flies open again.

Azula screams.

Zuko doesn’t even get to turn around before Ozai grabs him and lifts him into his arms.

“No! No!” Zuko screams and cries and grips at the frame of her door with bruised fingers that can’t get a grip on the smooth white paint.

Azula just watches.

“Terribly sorry, my dear,” Ozai says to her and then closes her door quietly.

She just stares at her door and tries to breathe. She hears thuds and cries from down the hall and she curls up under the covers with a pillow over her head.

And she waits.

She waits until it’s silent again and she tip-toes out of her room. Her brother’s door is open slightly and she slips inside.

Zuko’s lying on the floor next to a tiny puddle of blood and spit. He’s breathing slowly and he’s still crying silently. Azula shakes from head to toe.

_ He’s going to need you. _

She helps him to bed and wipes the blood off his chin. She lets him rest his head on her lap and she doesn’t stop shaking.

They both know what just happened.

He can’t hide anymore.

Nowhere in this house is safe.

“We’ll get out of here, Zu-Zu,” Azula whispers. “We’ll get out of here.”

She lies more and more.

She hates it so much.

She hates that apparently, no one can put it together. Her brother comes to school with new bruises every day. How do they not notice?

Zuko grows quieter and quieter every day.

A few days after he turns thirteen, he’s silent for forty-eight hours.

How do they not notice?

She blames herself, partially.

She’s outcompeting all her sixth-grade classmates. She can’t skip a grade right now, even Ozai won’t permit it, but she’s sitting in eighth-grade math classes.

Are they just so focused on how well she’s doing that they can’t see her brother is dying?

Azula comes downstairs after hearing more yelling than usual. She turns into the kitchen and screams. Zuko crumbles to the floor and shrieks. He tries to cover his face with his hand but it hurts him even more and he has to pull it away.

His eye is blistered and red and swollen and  _ burned _ . His ear is mangled and destroyed.

She can’t look away and she can’t move.

“We’re going to the hospital, Azula. I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” Ozai says.

Azula doesn’t say anything. She wants to hold her brother but he’s screaming in pain in Ozai’s arms. She stares at the still-lit stovetop and wants to be sick.

This isn’t like when her mother left in the middle of the night.

She knows exactly what happened.

She doesn’t feel her legs move when she goes to turn off the stove.

She doesn’t feel the tears on her cheeks.

She doesn’t feel her phone in her hands or her thumbs move when she sends Mai a text saying she needs someone to talk to.

Azula’s never told anyone this, but she didn’t go to school for that whole month Zuko was in the hospital.

She gets on the bus every morning and then when she’s dropped off at school, she walks away. She walks to a gas station and buys a vape. Then she walks to a river and just sits on a cliff and smokes.

She stares at the water and wonders when her mom left.

Why Ursa decided that she’d had enough of keeping her son safe from her husband.

Why she decided to give that burden to her daughter.

On a cliff where no one can see her, Azula screams.

She screams that she hates her father.

That she hates her mother.

That she hates her school and her teachers and her classmates.

That she misses her brother.

She walks home every day. After bullying some tech kid to hack into the school system and change her attendance.

She makes her own dinner and tries to be in bed before her father gets home.

She wants to strangle him every time he gives her a good night kiss when he comes in, thinking she’s asleep.

Azula waits until he’s gone to sleep before sneaking out and going into her brother’s desolate room. She curls up into his bed and cries herself to sleep.

Once they’re both in high school, Azula never leaves her brother’s side throughout the day. She makes sure he has someone to talk to in the halls and in the couple of classes that they have together.

She’s cold and stoic to everyone else. So many of these kids were in their middle school and elementary school. They’ve just stood by while Zuko deteriorated in front of them.

For whatever reason, having her around him all the time lifts his spirits. She’s slowly re-learned how to make him smile. And he can actually do it sometimes. It only lasts until they’re on the bus home, but Azula tries.

She tries so hard.

She just wants her brother’s life to be a tiny bit easier.

She’s allowed into AP calculus as a sophomore. She’s the first person in her high school’s history to do it at this age. Ozai praises her and scolds Zuko for being slow and stupid.

“Yes, sir,” is what her brother has learned to say to stay safe. It satisfies Ozai enough to either delay or forego a beating.

Azula wants to say that maybe Zuko would’ve been able to make it to this math level at her age, too. If he wasn’t plagued with trauma that keeps him locked away from basic human functions and nightmares that keep him from sleeping for days on end.

She doesn’t say it.

She just sits there, uncomfortable as always.

Sokka’s Toyota turns the corner just as Ozai’s car pulls into the driveway. Azula clenches her fist and dutifully reports that her brother is gone.

“Good,” Ozai says. “Didn’t feel like getting my hands dirty tonight.”

“Interesting way of saying you didn’t want to kill him tonight,” Azula mutters and goes back inside to wait for Iroh.

She collapses on her bed and sobs.

He’s free.

They’re both free.

She kept her promise to Zuko.

They’re getting out of here.

She packs a bag and is ready to walk out and never come back.

Azula figures that Zuko’s too exhausted to have nightmares that first night at Iroh’s house. After she helps him back to bed around six-thirty, he doesn’t wake up again until four. Iroh’s a little worried but Azula shakes it off.

“He hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in almost a decade. He needs this.”

Everything goes to hell the second night.

Zuko screams so loudly that Azula hears the neighbor’s dog barking and the lights in the houses on either side flick on.

“Zuko, please. It’s Azula,” she begs him while he sobs and screeches with his face in his hands. He doesn’t know where he is and he keeps asking Ozai to leave him alone.

Iroh rushes in and turns their bedroom light on. Azula looks up at her uncle with watery eyes and it’s the first time she’s ever said these words since Ursa left.

“Help me!” She sobs. Iroh flies into action and pushes her aside.

“Nephew? It’s Uncle Iroh. Your father isn’t here. You’re safe here, my boy,” Iroh says gently. He presses Zuko’s head against his soft chest and strokes his hair. “Can you look up at me, please?”

Zuko slowly drops his hands and brings his gaze up to Iroh’s eyes. All the fear and unbridled panic seeps out of him and he slumps against Iroh. “Not...here?” He asks hoarsely.

“Not here,” Iroh repeats. “I won’t let him anywhere near you again.”

The doorbell rings and Zuko flinches. Azula shakes with fury and she storms downstairs.

She pulls the front door open and doesn’t even take in the image of the neighbor before snapping, “What?”

“We heard screaming, can you keep it down?” The woman says. Azula doesn’t miss the air of entitlement and annoyance in her voice and her blood boils. This woman has no idea what her life has been like. What Zuko’s life has been like. Azula scoffs and glares at the woman.

“I’m sorry my brother’s post-traumatic stress disorder is  _ inconvenient  _ for you. I’ll tell him to have a vivid trauma nightmare a little quieter next time!” She shouts and slams the door as quietly as she can. She doesn’t want to frighten Zuko anymore. She hears the neighbor’s footsteps retreat and she falls to her knees.

She’s suddenly exhausted.

Iroh helps her back to bed but she spends the rest of the night staring at the wall.

It happens faster than Azula thought it would. Zuko starts smiling again. He starts laughing again. He starts asking for affection again.

Azula’s a little embarrassed about how her grudge against Sokka and his friends, her brother’s friends, quickly turns into a bone-deep gratitude.

Because they aren’t just making Zuko feel less alone.

They make her feel less alone.

She’s no longer the only one who knows about what her father did to Zuko. She’s no longer the only one who can help him. She’s no longer the only one he can turn to.

Azula’s been trying desperately to keep her brother afloat all by herself since she was eight. 

And now five more people are here.

And all five of them hold him better than she did on her own.

She’s not willing to let him go. To let these five idiots completely take over her job.

But she appreciates their help more than anything in the world.

“It’s not your job anymore, Azula,” her therapist tells her during one of their sessions. Once Zuko finally admitted he wanted to see a therapist, Iroh made the executive decision to get Azula one, too. “It’s not your job to take care of your brother now.”

“Then who else is going to do it?” Azula demands with her arms crossed. “His friends are young, too. But even as a unit they can’t do it all.”

“Your uncle, Azula,” Amber says. “Zuko’s health and well-being, along with yours, is now Iroh’s priority. You can let yourself, and your brother, be cared for by him now. Iroh wants to do it. And he’s a capable adult. It’s his job to take care of you two now.”

Azula doesn’t say anything. Her eyes water up and she stares at the fidget toy in her hands.

“What your mother did to you wasn’t fair,” Amber says. “She probably knew that something like this would happen and it wasn’t fair to put what should have been her job on you. But Iroh’s here now. And he’s not going to abandon you or force you to become an adult.”

Azula squeezes the stress ball.

“That job you’ve had for the past seven years? It’s over now, Azula,” Amber says. “It’s Iroh’s job now. You get to focus on other things now.”

“Like what?” Azula asks.

“Like being a student. A sister. A friend. Whatever you want to be,” Amber says. “Your job is done, Azula. You get to be you now.”

Azula lets go of the stress ball and feels a weight lift off of her.

She’s done.

She’s free.

**Author's Note:**

> I have another part planned which might be less angsty but like I said up top, it's rough (buddy) right now.  
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
